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SELECTING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS: BRIEF 3 — ADOPTION

Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices Related to the Adoption of Instructional Materials

by Min Chen-Gaddini, Elizabeth Burr, Stacy Marple, Daniel Bugler,

and Neal Finkelstein

Historically, state education agencies have had a strong role in deter-

mining what instructional materials (usually textbooks) are used in

classrooms, but in recent years, decisions about adoption of instruc-

tional materials have shifted to school districts and schools. A recent

Education Week article indicates that a declining number of states

conduct textbook reviews to identify materials that the state approves,

and that districts are not necessarily bound to select from the approved

materials.1 Current state adoption processes yield inconsistent results

and provide limited guidance to support districts in selecting materi-

als, and developing or adopting instructional materials has become

more of a district-level effort than a state-level effort.2 Confirming this

shift, a recent study found that most teachers indicated that school

districts were their primary source for curricula for English language

arts (ELA) and mathematics.3 Somewhat in contrast to those studies,

teachers in WestEd’s focus groups did not seem to rely on either the

district or resources such as EdReports, an effort launched in 2015 to

systematically review curricular materials, as their main sources of

authority for determining the quality of materials.

1 Gewertz, C. (2015). States shedding power to adopt class materials. Education Week, 34(21), 1, 10. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/states-ceding-power-over-classroom-materials.html2 Chingos, M., & Whitehurst, G. (2012). Choosing blindly: Instructional materials, teacher effectiveness, and the Common Core. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/research/choosing-blindly-instructional-materials-teacher-effectiveness-and-the-common-core/3 Rentner, D. S., Kober, N., Fizzell, M., & Ferguson, M. (2016). Listening to and learning from teachers: A summary of focus groups on the Common Core and assessments. Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy. http://www.cep-dc.org/displayDocument.cfm?DocumentID=1461

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Background

With funding from the William

and Flora Hewlett Foundation,

WestEd is studying how teachers

make decisions about which

instructional materials to use in

their classrooms. WestEd’s work

is designed to support a portfolio

of Hewlett-funded grantees

working to improve the quality

and consistency of instructional

materials in classrooms across the

United States. In 2016, WestEd

researchers conducted focus

groups with teachers in six cities to

develop a baseline understanding

of how they obtain, judge the

quality of, and select instructional

materials. Specifically, WestEd

researchers explored three areas of

interest: (1) teachers’ judgments of

what constitutes quality materials,

(2) why and how teachers choose to

supplement the adopted materials,

and (3) teachers’ descriptions of

processes for adopting instructional

materials in their districts and

schools. This brief focuses on the

third area of interest: teachers’

perceptions and practices related to

adoption of instructional materials

in their districts and schools. All

three briefs are available online at

http://WestEd.org/bookstore.

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This brief focuses on the roles that teachers play

in the district-led processes for selection and

adoption of instructional materials. To develop

this brief, focus-group interviews were conducted

with teachers to ascertain districts’ procedures

for adopting new texts and to understand teach-

ers’ roles in those procedures. (See Appendix 1 for

details of the sample and methods.)

The majority of the teachers’ comments about

adopting and using instructional materials fell

into three categories: teachers’ knowledge of and

involvement in adoption processes; teachers’ prac-

tices related to using the adopted materials, includ-

ing making adjustments to and supplementing the

materials; and teachers’ sentiments and wish lists

related to adopted materials.

Teachers’ Knowledge of and Involvement in Adoption Processes

All of the focus-group participants had been involved

in an ELA or mathematics materials adoption pro-

cess for their district, most within two years of the

focus group. Teachers’ participation in the pro-

cess varied: just over half had been part of a group

that made a final recommendation to the district;

another 20 percent participated in structures that

collected their opinions on potential materials; and

five percent participated in pilots. Most of the focus-

group teachers expressed familiarity with, and had

at some point participated in voting on, materials

selection for their district. Some also discussed

their direct communications with publishers or

curriculum providers regarding specific products.

District-level activities

Teachers who had been involved in adoption pro-

cesses at the district level universally agreed that

choosing which materials to adopt is ultimately an

administrative decision made by the district, but

exactly how this decision was made and who made

the decision were not clear to any of the teachers in

the focus groups.

According to focus-group participants, some dis-

tricts assigned specific coordinators for each

subject, to facilitate communication between the

district and the school. These coordinators took

note of the requests made by schools and teach-

ers and presented those requests to the district

leadership team. Once the leadership team made

a decision about what materials it recommended

adopting, the team passed on its recommendation

to the school board, for the board to make a final

decision on adoption. A teacher from the Denver

metro area shared additional information about

the adoption process there:

We are a slightly smaller district, and the

way that we adopt in our district, no matter

what curriculum it is, is there is always a

committee. It is usually a yearlong process.

People are chosen by their principals to be

on the committee. They ask [vendor] reps to

come in. [The reps] do their spiel. Somebody

usually pilots it for [a] certain amount of

time. [The committee] votes on it, and then

they have board meetings, present it to the

board, present it to the parents, and then . . .

[provide] training.

— Teacher, Denver Area4

As this quote exemplifies, teachers in some dis-

tricts were well aware of the entire procedures,

which usually included forming a committee,

proposing a selection of materials, narrowing

the options down to two or three candidates, and

piloting the selected materials. In a Seattle metro

district, teachers used rubrics that were specifi-

cally developed for the adoption process, and these

rubrics were shared publicly with the teachers via

4 Teachers’ statements throughout this brief are not necessarily representative of their school, district, or state.

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the district’s webpage and via social media such as

Facebook and Twitter.

Some districts also selected teachers, primarily on a

volunteer basis with little compensation, to be repre-

sentatives of their adoption committees. Following

is a typical example of a teacher describing being a

representative on the adoption committee:

Usually there was an email sent out from

the department head asking for volunteers to

be on a district curriculum committee. We

usually got together once a month through-

out the entire school year. . . . [We] met with

other teachers from around the district,

looking through materials. Then once we

narrowed it . . . usually it was narrowed

down by that committee, then those [selected

options] were brought to the schools. It was

more just like taking it to your school and

getting feedback on each one and then com-

ing back to the committee, with the commit-

tee making the decision and then the district

making the final [decision]. . . . Usually what

the committee suggested was adopted.

— Teacher, Seattle Area

Other districts had the department heads go to a

meeting held by the district, where they were given

the choice of two sets of materials to adopt. The

heads then went back to their schools to hold a

meeting in their department, in which the teachers

discussed the pros and cons for each set of materi-

als and decided which one to adopt.

School-level activities

Teachers showed more knowledge and involvement

in school-level activities for district- and school-

level curriculum adoption than in district-level

activities. They shared their experiences of going

to open nights, hosted by their schools, for parents

and teachers to acquire information about candi-

date materials; of voting for different choices of

materials; and of piloting the materials that were

under consideration by their districts. The extents

to which teachers in the focus groups had been

involved in decision-making processes varied. For

instance, in some schools, teachers were asked to

vote among several choices provided by schools, but

they were not told how the voting results were pro-

cessed or what the criteria were when the school or

district made decisions. In other schools, the prin-

cipals and department heads worked closely with

teachers and took their input in deciding whether

or not to adopt materials.

The head of the math department came to all

of us with a bag with the Go Math, the Big

Ideas Math, the CMP II, and the Singapore

Math [materials] . . . and said try this in

your classroom. . . . We had a meeting all

together. We eliminated one of them, and

there were three that we still liked. We did

another unit. We eliminated another one.

Then, there were two that we still liked.

Then, she had a parent committee. . . .

Down to just two choices. . . . So, after doing

that, she came back with what the ideas of

the parents were, and we all caved and said

okay. We all sat there on professional devel-

opment day, asked questions, and we tried

problems and things like that. And then we

said what we wanted and made the decision.

— Teacher, Boston Area

My principal [at a community charter

school] and I [went] to NCTM conventions

and we shopped. We talked to the represen-

tative. They delivered kits for each level for

Envision [and] Go Math. . . . And so [we got

together our ELA and math departments].

They looked through the materials. And then

after they looked through the materials, they

voted, and the school [adopted the materials].

— Teacher, New Orleans Area

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Teachers’ direct communications with curriculum providers

Some teachers also mentioned communicating

directly with publishers and curriculum providers,

mostly in the form of piloting or in receiving train-

ing on how to use their products.

Many teachers mentioned that one of the major

reasons they have agreed to pilot some materials is

to receive the materials for free or at a discounted

price. Through piloting, teachers were able to give

feedback to the publishers and curriculum provid-

ers. According to teachers from the Tampa area,

the publishers had made changes to the instruc-

tional materials as a result of their input. As one

teacher recalled:

We’ve shared with textbook companies, over

the years, things that we prefer, that teachers

have requested. And a lot of textbook compa-

nies have, during this process, been willing

to make changes if we would adopt their

books, so that kind of talk has happened.

— Teacher, Tampa Area

Curriculum providers also offer product trainings

for teachers. Some teachers raised an issue that the

trainings can be prescribed, rather than being tai-

lored to the specific needs of each district/school.

As one teacher explained:

The [curriculum providers] have a lot of

information, they have lots of resources,

but they [are] very scripted. . . . So literally

my training was this lady reading off of her

slides, and sometimes she wouldn’t even

know what the slide meant. She’d be like, “I

don’t even know what that’s supposed to be,

so let’s just skip that,” and I’d be like, “I’m

supposed to be learning from you and you

don’t even know what you’re talking about?”

Not that she doesn’t know what she’s talking

about, because she knows the program, but

she didn’t know what it is that [our district’s]

objective was for her to teach us. So yes, the

people who came back were sparsely trained

and then were supposed to train all of our

teachers at our site.

— Teacher, Raleigh Area

Teachers’ Practices Related to Using the Adopted Materials

Across districts, teachers reported using vari-

ous mandated materials, such as Bridges, Café,

Connected Math III, Discovery Ed, EngageNY,

Journeys, and the Readers & Writers Workshop.

(See Appendix 2 for the complete list of adopted

materials that were mentioned by focus-group par-

ticipants.) Regarding whether or how they used

lesson plans to guide their teaching, all teachers

agreed that they were required to follow certain

types of guidelines (e.g., pacing guides, mapping,

or other requirements) that are given by their

districts or schools. But teachers also described

having varying levels of flexibility and autonomy

in deciding what to use in their classrooms on

a daily basis. Such variations may be due to the

varied management styles of principals (e.g., “my

principal is very flexible”) or to the nature of the

materials themselves.

Some schools are stricter on it than others.

In some schools, every class in the grade

level has got to be on the exact same day,

and they will check. And others are more laid

back. We were just told that you no longer

have to follow [the guidelines]. You have to

be more where your kids are at.

— Teacher, Raleigh Area

Following the guidelines

Most teachers mentioned that they had to fol-

low certain guidelines in teaching the adopted

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materials. One reason that teachers mentioned for

emphasizing the importance of the pacing guides

is related to assessment of students’ academic per-

formance. Some teachers explained that strictly

following the guides to plan their daily classroom

activities meant that students learn the same con-

tent within the same period of time across the dis-

trict; thus, students’ academic performance can

be assessed at the same time as other students are

assessed. However, in day-to-day practice, teachers

make adjustments and sometimes supplement the

adopted materials. As one teacher explained:

[Students] are taking an assessment that the

district created based on the mapping and

standards. So, all the students are getting the

same assessment . . . [but] you can’t really tell

if [the curriculum materials are] working if

you don’t know what people are supplementing

[or] whether there [are] consistent [materials].

— Teacher, Boston Area

Teachers in the Denver area brought up an inter-

esting comparison between curriculum and

resources. The term “curriculum” suggests materi-

als that need to be followed systematically, but the

term “resources” allows for greater flexibility. The

teachers reported that, in their districts, they were

encouraged to differentiate their instructional

materials accordingly. As one teacher shared:

When I think about the secondary level, I

think one of the reasons they really defined

curriculum versus resources [was] because

many secondary ELA teachers are stuck,

I guess, in resource-land. They have units

where they teach Hamlet and then they teach

Romeo and Juliet. And they’re teaching that

text rather than the thinking and the skills,

and using that really as a vehicle. So I think

that’s been some of the push in our district,

at least at the secondary level.

— Teacher, Denver Area

Making adjustments and supplementing

Although all teachers said that they had to follow

certain types of guidelines in using the adopted

materials, none of them reported that they used

these materials or implemented the curricular

programs with complete fidelity, even when they

described the materials as being high-quality and

standards-aligned. Across all focus groups, teach-

ers predominantly mentioned the following as

being the three primary issues that led them to

seek supplemental materials:

1. The adopted instructional materials did not

adequately support student achievement of the

standards and success on assessments;

2. The adopted materials had insufficient differen-

tiation; and/or

3. The adopted materials were not engaging for

students or teachers.

Give me some good ideas on the ways to

deliver [standards] because I’m not going to

have the same set of kids every year, I mean,

even with three sections of science, I can’t

teach all three of those classes the same way.

I can’t do the exact same activities, because

there’s no way . . . one of my SPED classes

on Tuesday, the other two are dissecting

chicken wings, and I’m putting a surgical

blade in their hand . . . it’s just not going to

happen. And you can put it in the curricu-

lum all you want to that I got to dissect a

chicken wing; those 27 kids aren’t doing it.

And so there has to be that kind of decision-

making freedom going on in what we do.

— Teacher, Raleigh Area

For related reading, another brief in this series,

Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices Related to the

Adoption of Instructional Materials, provides more

detail on the reasons for teachers’ seeking out

materials to supplement the adopted texts, and on

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the sources that they use to find or create supple-

mental materials.

Teachers’ Sentiments and Wish Lists Related to Adopted Materials

Across focus groups, teachers expressed a variety

of sentiments about the materials adoption pro-

cess. Whereas some teachers were well aware of

the procedures and felt involved in the entire pro-

cess (particularly in the Seattle and New Orleans

area focus groups), others expressed dissatisfac-

tion toward their districts or schools for not pro-

viding transparency (particularly in the Tampa

and Raleigh area focus groups).

Nonetheless, there were some commonalities in the

sentiments expressed across all of the focus groups.

First, at least one teacher from each focus group

(including the Seattle area and New Orleans area,

where teachers reported being closely involved in

the adoption process) expressed his or her frustra-

tion in not knowing exactly how the districts or

schools made their choices in adopting materials.

Second, teachers expressed wishes to receive eco-

nomical and high-quality instructional materials,

as well as well-designed professional training, to

support their work.

I feel like [the purpose of] teacher input is

[for the administrators] to say that they did

it [i.e., sought teacher input]. But at the end

of the day it’s going to be somebody high up

there who is going to ultimately choose. I

don’t really feel like our voice is truly heard.

I felt a lot of times it’s just to say, “Hey, [did

you] ask your teachers if they wanted this?

Yes, sure, here are some teacher responses.”

But our responses are not matching what

you’re getting; we didn’t ask for this. We asked

for this over here, but, and they’ll say [no].

It’s usually [because of] the price: “We don’t

have money for it. We have money for these

traditional ones, and you work around it,

because this is what we’re giving you.” I don’t

really feel like they really, truly hear our voice.

— Teacher, Raleigh Area

In the Seattle area focus group, teachers reported

that, even though they knew the rubrics for curric-

ulum adoption and had been told that the decision-

making process is consensus-based, they did not

know exactly how final decisions were made about

adopting materials. In another focus group in the

Tampa area, teachers were even more frustrated by

the fact that no rubrics or criteria were provided by

the districts.

I think we did vote, but I never saw the

official results from the vote. So I wonder if

it’s just because of contract reasons that they

vote. But do they actually [select] what we

voted [for]? We never see a result.

— Teacher, Tampa Area

Teachers’ wish lists

Teachers in all focus groups were eager to have

high-quality materials. Many teachers suggested

that curriculum providers/publishers should cus-

tomize the products to reflect the specific charac-

teristics and needs of their districts and schools.

All of the teachers, especially those who were new

to the profession, emphasized the importance of

having well-developed professional training to

highlight the major features of new resources and

products and how to use them. Whereas veteran

teachers are able to use the adopted texts right

away, knowing exactly what to use and what to

skip, new teachers may experience difficulties in

making these decisions. In addition, even veteran

teachers may find it challenging to master the

materials for digital versions of curriculum.

It seems like there are a lot of resources

available to us that are provided via our

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district, but they take too much time to

understand; we don’t understand how to

use them. They’re not necessarily teacher-

friendly or student-friendly, and we haven’t

received training on them. So I think that

one thing that would be beneficial is to get

that training, because it’s one thing to have

a resource, but if you don’t know how to use

it, it’s just going to sit there and collect dust

or be in a closet somewhere.

— Teacher, Raleigh Area

Summary

Overall, regardless of whether focus-group partici-

pants were in a state that had an approved list of

materials for teachers to use, most teachers, across

focus groups, agreed that materials adoption is a

district process, consistent with recent studies,5

contending that the process of developing or adopt-

ing instructional materials has become more of a

district-level effort than a state-level effort. The

adoption process usually includes, but is not lim-

ited to, forming an adoption committee, reviewing

curriculum providers’ presentations, narrowing

down the choices of candidate materials, and orga-

nizing a pilot process at the school level. According

to teachers’ descriptions of their districts’ adop-

tion activities, most districts evaluated candidate

materials in somewhat disjointed ways, and little

outside information about evidence of the effec-

tiveness of those materials was utilized in the

adoption process.

Teachers’ involvement in materials adoption pro-

cesses differed across sites. Regardless of whether

they were or were not closely involved, most teach-

ers expressed some level of frustration about not

knowing the rationale behind their districts’ or

5 Chingos & Whitehurst (2012); Rentner, Kober, Fizzell, & Ferguson (2016).

schools’ choices for the materials. A large number

of teachers made statements such as “We are told

[that materials are selected] based on our vote. But

sometimes when we reconvene and we all talk, [we

realize] we didn’t vote for that, so we’re not sure

how we got it.”

Most teachers in the focus groups agreed that

they were required to follow a certain type of pac-

ing guide given by the school or district, although

some reported more freedom and flexibility than

others. At the same time, teachers emphasized the

necessity of being creative about making adjust-

ments and supplementing their given materials.

Many teachers, especially those who were new in

their professions, emphasized the importance of

having well-developed professional training on

how to use the adopted materials. Some teachers

reported that the training they had attended was

generic, focused on the product itself, without any

tailoring to the teachers’ own districts or schools.

Discussion

As evidenced in the focus groups, even teachers

who were involved in district-level adoption pro-

cesses were unsure of how the ultimate decisions

to adopt a text were made, and what impact their

involvement had in those decisions; subsequently,

teachers wondered how they ended up with certain

texts. Greater transparency on the part of districts

(collecting and taking into account teachers’ points

of view) about the rationales for choosing texts

could help alleviate this concern of teachers.

Although the adoption processes are mostly car-

ried out at the district level, focus-group findings

suggest that teachers would still find it helpful if

states collect a list of high-quality materials that

have been vetted by teachers and that are stan-

dards-aligned and easy to adopt.

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Teachers’ comments indicate that curriculum pro-

viders could improve their trainings by explaining

how the texts can be used with specific student

populations. Responsiveness to teachers’ needs to

differentiate according to students’ needs would

better support teachers in using the products.

The teachers in the focus groups conveyed a strong

sense of caring about the materials in their class-

rooms and indicated that they were aware of the

proliferation of online resources for materials, but

they did not seem to be aware of many external

tools available to help them ascertain the relative

benefits and quality of instructional materials.

Teachers generally judge materials by how those

materials work in their classrooms, regardless

of the source of the materials — i.e., whether the

materials were provided by the district or sourced

from colleagues, online platforms, or older text-

books. Although teachers’ professional judgment

remains important, it is clear that teachers crave

more support and more transparency from admin-

istrators regarding the selection of instructional

materials.

Appendix 1: Sample and Methods

The data for this project were collected through

group interviews with teachers in varied metropol-

itan areas across the country. A total of 14 focus

groups were held in six metro locations: Boston,

Denver, New Orleans, Raleigh, Seattle, and Tampa.

In each of these locations, the project team hired

a local firm to recruit participants. In addition,

the project team used Craigslist advertisements to

recruit teachers for two focus groups, in the Raleigh

and Tampa metro areas. Prospective participants

were screened using a short survey, to ensure that

they were currently credentialed teachers working

in public schools and that they had participated in

either an English language arts (ELA) or a math-

ematics materials adoption process within five

years of the focus group. The project team also

required prospective participants to respond to a

short-answer questionnaire regarding quality of

materials. This process yielded a total of 65 ELA

and/or mathematics teachers, from elementary

schools (62%) and middle schools (38%). A total of

31 districts were represented, with an average total

enrollment of 85,608 per district, and an average

non-White student population of 56 percent across

the districts.

About three quarters of participants (48) had been

involved in materials adoption activities within the

prior two years; the rest of the participants (17)

had been involved in adoption activities within

five years of the focus groups. In both the Seattle

and Denver metro areas, the number of partici-

pants who had experience in the adoption of ELA

materials was roughly equivalent to the number of

participants who had experience in the adoption

of mathematics materials. In the other four loca-

tions, slightly more participants had experience

in the adoption of ELA materials than mathemat-

ics materials. In most locations, participants were

about as likely to have been involved in both ELA

and mathematics materials adoptions as they were

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to have participated in the adoption of materials in

only one subject. In the Boston area, most partici-

pants had been involved in only one subject’s adop-

tion process.

The focus-group interviews were intended to col-

lect information about how teachers make judg-

ments about the quality of instructional materials.

Another interest of the study was to learn about

why and how teachers sought additional instruc-

tional materials to supplement those adopted by

their schools and districts. And a third interest was

to collect information about school and district

processes for adopting new instructional materials

under the Common Core State Standards or other

new standards, as well as information about teach-

ers’ roles in those processes.

Focus groups were facilitated by WestEd senior

research staff and were limited to a maximum

of eight participants per focus group. Questions

were open-ended and structured by a protocol.

However, the facilitator was also able to follow the

participants’ interests. Participants were regularly

asked to support their statements by describing the

materials adoption committees in which they had

participated and by describing experiences in their

classrooms.

The focus-group responses were transcribed,

and the transcripts were coded in a two-part

process. First, teacher statements that would

inform the three primary interests of the project

(materials adoption processes, teachers’ judg-

ments about materials quality, and supplementing

adopted materials) were identified. Coding was

non- exclusive, in that any statement or set of state-

ments by teachers could be coded multiple ways.

Codes were applied broadly, including as much

information as needed to provide context for each

statement. The first round of coding produced col-

lections of quotations from across research sites.

These collections were then read closely as a set,

in order to develop a more refined and emergent

coding scheme for each of the three areas. The col-

lection of quotations was then recoded using these

thematic codes.

The exploratory nature of these focus groups, as

well as the open-ended protocol, prevents strict

quantifying of the findings. However, the themes

described in this brief, as well as their subthemes,

represent topics that were discussed substantially,

often across multiple focus groups and by various

groups of teachers. This brief and the other two

briefs in this series explain these themes and use

quotations as examples of teachers’ statements to

illustrate the themes.

Nonetheless, the themes that are discussed in these

briefs should be interpreted with caution, as these

focus groups capture the views of only a small num-

ber of teachers, and the statements made by these

teachers are not necessarily representative of the

teachers’ schools, districts, or states. In addition,

not every teacher in the focus groups remarked on

every discussed topic, so the statements in these

briefs should not be interpreted as the consensus

of any focus group, except in instances that are

explicitly noted as representing views expressed by

all teachers.

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Appendix 2: Adopted Materials Named by Focus-Group Participants (Ordered Alphabetically)

Note: This list includes textbooks, web subscrip-

tions, and other materials provided to teachers

through their schools or districts. City names

below correspond to the area of the country where

the focus group was held, not to a specific school

district in that metro area.

» Bridges (Denver)

» CAFE (Raleigh)

» Connected Math III by Pearson (Seattle)

» Daily 5 (Raleigh)

» Direction Instruction Reading (New Orleans)

» Discovery Ed (Raleigh)

» Dream Box (Denver)

» EngageNY (All sites)

» Envision (New Orleans; Boston)

» Eureka (New Orleans)

» Expeditionary Learning (Seattle)

» Go Math (Boston)

» Harcourt Trophies (Boston)

» i-Ready (Raleigh)

» Journeys (Boston; Tampa; Seattle)

» Khan Academy (Raleigh; Denver)

» Letterland (Raleigh)

» Math Expressions (Denver)

» Math in Focus (Boston; Seattle)

» National Geographic Reach for Reading (Boston)

© 2017 WestEd. All rights reserved.

Suggested citation: Chen-Gaddini, M., Burr, E., Marple, S., Bugler, D., & Finkelstein, N. (2017). Teachers’ perceptions and practices related to the adoption of instructional materials. San Francisco, CA: WestEd.

WestEd is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research, development, and service agency that works with education and other communities throughout the United States and abroad to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults. WestEd has more than a dozen offices nationwide, from Massachusetts, Vermont, and Georgia to Illinois, Arizona, and California, with headquarters in San Francisco.

For more information about WestEd, visit our website: http://www.WestEd.org; call: 415.565.3000 or, toll-free, (877) 4-WestEd; or write: WestEd / 730 Harrison Street / San Francisco, CA 94107-1242.

The development of this brief was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The contents of this brief do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the funder.

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